eZ430-F2013 Development Tool
Written 2011-01-26
Tags:USB Development Kit Microcontroller eZ430-F2013 TI RS-232 Serial I2C MSP430
Normally I take apart all new toys, but this one has only 5 parts, and is designed to come apart easily. It costs only $20, available from TI here. Previously, there was a giveaway for up to 3 units, although you had to wait up to a month for shipping and handling.
Packaging: I'm a big fan of the DVD case and double thick DVD case form factors. This comes in a single DVD case:
Looks a lot like a thumbdrive, which is a great form factor for something like this:
Here's the important part
It breaks apart into two pieces: the USB to RSR232/RS485 with TUSB3410, and the MSP430 itself:
For some perspective, this is sitting on an American Lincoln Penny
This looks to be a fun toy, for two reasons. One, is the MSP430 microcontroller. Two, is the USB to Serial Adapter. The serial adapter is a TUSB3410, which also holds an 8052 microcontroller with 16K of RAM, 10K of ROM, UART with DMA, dual 16-bit timers, IRDA encoder/decoder, and also I2C.